Exhibit A: What happens when students camp out in the College Center in wait of tickets to what Acting President Joan Chenette has called “one Elle of a show.”
The ovation-worthy directorial debut of Doug Greer ’14, with Jessie Lanza ’15 as the bending-and-snapping Elle Woods, FWA’s Legally Blond: The Musical has got Vassar legally wound around its blonde-lock-twirling little finger.
But Vassar’s obsession with commitment to theater has very old roots reaching far into the mid-1800s to what were termed the Hall Plays – so named after their venue, Society Hall.
In the time of the Hall Plays, Vassar had at least a play a week! The Philaletheis Society, Vassar’s sole dramatic club, with its huge budget produced three Hall Plays and two ‘Minor Halls.’ Each House put on its own ‘one-acters.’ Each department of language staged at least one play, while English classes chose scenes from Shakespeare and classes in Dramatic Production acted at least three plays a year. By the 1950s, students dissatisfied with Philaletheis and the rigidity of Hall Play selection (#dramaworlddrama) ignited the rise of alternative organizations, spawning the birth of today’s Unbound, Idlewild, The Woodshed Theatre Ensemble, and FWA, among others. And today, surviving the Hall Plays, their frequent productions have a new venue in the Susan Shiva Stein Theater.
So this Founder’s Day weekend come appropriately accessorized to experience the fabulous fantastic-ness of a wonderful production featuring an altogether scintillating cast and production team, an impossibly perfect Paulette, an infinitely adorable Bruiser, and of course, an endlessly explosive Elle that thoroughly thrills.
VASS 101: 